After hearing about Getting Things Gone (GTD) on the web for years now I have finally decided to see what all the fuss is about and find out more. If you haven't heard about GTD it's a productivity/organization system to help you "Get things Done". The system was created by productivity guru David Allen who published a book on the subject: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. (Note if you buy the book using that link you will support Merlin Mann of 43 Folders. I figure I've gotten so much from his site that if I can get him a few extra bucks it's the least I could do)
So I bought the book and I'm halfway done it but now I'm considering what tools I'll use to implement my workflow. For physical things like mail, forms, etc I will use metal stackable trays for IN boxes but for the majority of my "stuff" it will be digital. I want some good tools to keep track of everything on my mac and then sync everything to my Palm Tungsten T3 for mobile calendar/todos/notes.
After a bit of research here are choices I'm looking at for Mac tools:
iGTD
Pros:
- Built for GTD
- Developer is very actively developing application (updates almost every day)
- iCal sync
- Tagging
- Lots of praise from the GTD OS X community
- Freeware
- Excellent Quicksilver support
Cons:
- Cluttered UI
- Not very mature
- Closed data formats!
- No export features (yet)
Actiontastic
Pros:
- Built for GTD
- iCal sync
- Opensource
- Simple User Interface
- Not bad Quicksilver support
Cons:
- Not very mature
- No Smart Folders
- No tagging
Journler
Pros:
- Extensible with AppleScript
- Fantastic journaling application
- Allows audio recording, video, text and attaching files to entries
- iLife support
- Mature application
- Tagging
- Amazing Smart Folder support
- Freeware
- Quicksilver support (via services plugin)
- Great export features
Cons:
- Not designed as GTD application (but could be used as one)
- No iCal Sync (some iCal integration can be achieved using AppleScript
I've been using Journler now for research, notes, etc for a month now and it's a fantastic tool. This is why it would be great to also use it as a central point for GTD but it definitely wouldn't be as feature rich or polished a solution as the other two applications. I'll play around with them and see what I think. Anyone else have some good thoughts or experience with GTD?
These days I need to work on my organization. Between working on my PhD (course work, research projects, dissertation), consulting, personal projects and life in general my current systems are in need of tweaking. I'm hoping GTD is as good as all the buzz says it is. So far from what I've learned it does have promise. We'll see how it goes...